Getting Through To You
by LonelyHeart101
Summary: Love comes in many different shapes and forms - some of them natural and other a little more...unnatural. Sirius learns some hard lessons, Lily and James grow closer and Raisa attempts to use chocolate cake as a coping mechanism... James/Lily, Sirius/OC
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

**Came back from my hols with the entire first chapter written, then started typing and realised that I wanted to take it in a different direction altogether : P, so apologies for the wait... **

_**Sequel to 'Getting Over You': The gang are back for their seventh and final year at Hogwarts... Sirius/Raisa, James/Lily**_

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 1**

Sirius Black started the new school year exactly how he had ended the last one – completely and hopelessly in love with Raisa Ramsey.

This was proving to be problematic firstly in that very soon he would have to see her again, and secondly in that his supposed best friend seemed to have taken it upon himself to be the most unsympathetic listener on the planet – a fact magnified tenfold considering the events of the previous year where one James Potter had proceeded to talk the ears off of the world, his uncle, and second cousin too on the subject of Lily Evans.

"Christ, Padfoot!" exclaimed James 'Sympathy Does Not Live Here' Potter, cutting like a knife into Sirius' thoughts and pointing towards his bags.

"Go and get yourself a trolley for those bags. What do you think? That by wrenching your arms out of their sockets you can change the past.

Sirius scowled at the ignominy of being scolded without good reason by unarguably the most reckless and least sensible of all the Marauders.

"Head Boy for ten minutes and you already sound like my mother," Sirius remarked tartly, resenting that James apparently saw him as incapable of even carrying his own bags.

James baulked at the patented insult between the pair. "Oh, you did _not_ just compare me to your mother. That was a definite line crossed there, mate,"

"Eh," Sirius pretended to consider the point for a few moments. "You may be right there – my mother would have dispensed with the trolley and given me Regalus' bags to carry too."

James snorted. "Anyway, I have to go to the Prefects Carriage – Lily will hit the roof if I'm late. Are you...?" he hesitated here sheepishly. "Are you going to be okay here until Remus and Peter come?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "I don't know James...Without adult supervision I might jump on Raisa as soon as she appears on the platform," he continued, voice thick with sarcasm.

"Nah, I'll be fine mate," he assured, waving away James' concerns more confidently than he actually felt. "Just say hello to the future Mrs Potter for me."

James blushed, and then in the knowledge that Sirius had managed to elicit such a girly emotion from him promptly made to hit him, before checking himself hurriedly and pulling himself and his luggage towards the train and the relative safety of Lily.

Sirius allowed himself a small smile. Watching James grapple with his new responsibilities and naturally violent tendencies was definitely going to be a high point this year. With an amused chuckle he picked his two bags back up and hefted them towards the train.

* * *

Raisa Ramsey knew in the back of her mind that there was some Physics law to do with immovable objects and the like, but at that precise moment she couldn't quite think what it was.

People obsessed with science that spent all their time in a darkened room had probably never encountered this group of evil Slytherins who seemed to get an unnatural kick from annoying innocent people.

"Leave me alone," she sighed, repeating words for what seemed like the millionth time in the past fifteen minutes that unfortunately seemed to have no effect whatsoever.

"What are you going to do? You're just a girl," the very sexist Regalus Black scoffed mockingly.

"That may be true, but I know a great little hex which will turn your backside bright green for a whole week," Raisa retorted smartly, all the while wondering how someone as comparatively normal as Sirius was spawned from the same gene pool as this misogynistic idiot.

"I highly doubt that. You strike me as someone who probably couldn't find their way out of a paper bag at a push," he drawled, earning a collective laugh from the rest of the Slytherins for the rather unoriginal insult.

"Why you little - " Raisa lunged at him, well aware in the back of her mind that Lily would kill her for getting into a fight within the first few seconds of returning to school, but not actually caring a whole lot right now.

She did, however, care a great deal about the pinioning arms that were now stopping her fists from connecting with Regalus' face. Violence – despite what some people tried to argue – was very healthy.

"Leave her alone," sounded a sharp and insistent voice coming from the arm now attached to hers.

Regalus looked startled, but hid it well with a quick sneer. "Well hello there, _bro_," he greeted, enunciating the _bro_ in the manner of something that he had found on the back of his shoe.

"Leave her alone, Reg," Sirius continued, choosing to ignore his brother's words. He kept a firm grip on Raisa's arms, to prevent her from doing something stupid.

Raisa, on the other hand, did not appreciate his intervention and was now doing her absolute best to manoeuvre her foot around to knee him in his jewels.

Sirius winced: "You know, if women had any idea how painful that is then they really wouldn't go for that area so much."

"Oh, I beg to differ," Raisa snarled back.

"Would you really? How does childbirth sound to you?"

"Just peachy thanks,"

Regalus and the rest of the Slytherins watched the interactions with interest.

"Wow – it's like an old married couple," a not too bright member of the group pointed out.

Raisa's head jerked up, her words laced with ice: "Say what?"

To their credit the group had the good grace to look at least a little afraid of the small woman with blazing eyes, their hands automatically reaching for their wands until warned off by a glare from Sirius.

"If you hurt even one hair on her head I swear that I will hunt you down and kill you," he threatened coldly, grey eyes unnervingly resolute.

"You think we don't know who it was who stole the Book a few weeks back," countered Regalus, staring down his brother equally firmly.

Sirius' grip loosened slightly on Raisa's arm:

"You can't prove a thing, Reg," he whispered menacingly.

Regalus Black - in childhood always second best to his older brother in verbal contests – opened and closed his mouth in an effort to dispute Sirius' words, but found that he couldn't.

"Okay Reg, while you do a passable impression of a goldfish me and Rai here are off. It's been fun!" Sirius waved fake cordially at his brother and dragged a protesting Raisa with him down the train, wondering exactly when she had put out a casting call for a knight in shining armour.

* * *

"Well hello there, Muffin," James greeted, attempting to swagger his way sexily into the Prefects Carriage.

He hadn't seen his dearly beloved girlfriend in three days and was missing her terribly. Stupid, bitter Sirius may make unfounded jokes about it, but James was happy and that was something to be celebrated instead of mocked.

Without taking note of the compartment around him (because, let's face it, when confronted with his girlfriend his surroundings did tend to become a little blurry round the edges) James turned her 

round, bent her at the waist and pulled her in for the kind of steamy, passionate and decidedly private kiss that you absolutely would _not_ want anyone else to witness.

...Or snigger at...

James looked up with a start on hearing some unexpected sniggering and promptly let go of his beloved red-head on finding that the carriage he had previously construed as empty was in fact full to the brim with prefects, Remus Lupin sitting in the corner being the only one kind enough to try and hide his amusement.

He quickly turned his gaze to the floor to see if dropping his girlfriend was also part of the horrible and unfair nightmare that he was evidently now having.

...No such luck.

"Muffin," Lily greeted tartly but a little flustered, giving her boyfriend the kind of very transparent eye message suggesting that he would be dead already were it not for the fact that here there would be a large number of witnesses to the crime. "These are all of the prefects in the entire school."

Sheepishly, James turned to face his peers: "Hi guys."

There was another snicker from the audience, very quickly disguised with a cough on being glared at by Lily.

"You see Black off okay?" she hissed out of the corner of her mouth.

"Yes," James affirmed, marvelling at how skilled his girlfriend was in the art of subterfuge.

"And you're sure that he is nowhere near Raisa?"

James turned to face her, gazing at her affectionately. He would of course have to correct her at some point on her assumption that Sirius was a corrupting influence.

"Padfoot is with Peter, Raisa is presumably with Alice and they are nowhere near each other," he declared confidently. "Trust me."

* * *

Raisa sat down in the carriage compartment with huff, doing her best to pointedly ignore the mildly amused Sirius Black who followed her inside.

"Well if you will walk around with your eyes shut then its Sod's Law that you'll bump into Slytherins," Sirius maintained.

Raisa rolled her eyes and proceeded to stick her tongue out at her rescuer while he lugged their trunks into the overhead compartment, his back to her.

Sirius sighed. "Sweetheart, I can see your reflection in the window."

Raisa's face immediately darkened. "I only had my eyes shut because I saw _you_," she retorted angrily.

Sirius let go of the last trunk abruptly and fell onto his head with a thump.

* * *

"I bet James and Remus would have a fit if they knew we were in the same compartment," Raisa murmured, unnerved by the companionable silence that had settled between the two.

"True," Sirius nodded slowly, imagining the slow, painful death that would doubtless befall him if his two best friends found out about his moth-like tendencies. Hell, maybe he should be more worried about Lily's reaction. During her all too frequent visits to the Potter household over the summer break, Lily Evans had made it crystal clear that in terms of her least favourite people in the universe Sirius lay somewhere in between the devil and her sister Petunia.

It was true that Sirius did stupid things sometimes, but no one seemed to understand that he really did love Raisa.

"I'm going to go and find another carriage," muttered Raisa hurriedly, springing up from her seat and tearing her gaze away from his.

Before he knew what he was doing, Sirius grabbed her wrist to pull her back down. Raisa fell back into her seat with a thump. It took her a few moments to get her bearings back, and then she wasted not another moment in laying into Sirius big style.

"What is this?" she yelled. "You save me from angry Slytherins only so you get the opportunity to kill me yourself?"

Sirius winced at hearing Raisa talk so flippantly of her own death.

"You told me what you ...told me...before the summer for a reason, so I really don't understand why you're trying to make this so hard," she continued.

He nodded slowly: "You're right."

"I know I'm right," she spluttered. "We have to get through a whole year together, and in order for that to happen I really think you need to leave me alone."

"What? Leave you alone to be blown to bits by Lucius and his crew?" Sirius asked. "You just can't admit that I saved your bacon back there."

Raisa snorted. "You did _not_ 'save my bacon', I would have been fine without your assistance, and I'm going to find Alice."

Sirius rubbed his very sore head.

Raisa turned at the door, suddenly struck by a remembrance from her encounter with the posse from hell: "Didn't Regalus say you stole a book from home?"

The rubbing ground to a halt, leaving Sirius simply standing with his hand on his head.

"Oh no, tell me you didn't," Raisa shook her head, realisation quickly dawning on her. "You stole the Black Book."

Sirius gulped and did the only thing he could think of in the circumstances, gracefully collapsing to the floor in the manner of a swan.

* * *

James walked dazed out of the carriage, wondering what part of his DNA it was that always seemed to make him act like an idiot. He wore glasses, so that went some way to excusing his poor peripheral vision, but the fact still remained that he had a habit of doing really, really stupid things.

"Lily, are you sure you don't have concussion or something?" he inquired, rubbing her shoulder soothingly.

"You know honey, I'm not a doctor or a healer so I don't actually know," remarked Lily Evans, rubbing her aching head.

"I'm sorry," James added, just in case she wasn't quite clear on that part.

"I know," Lily assured. "You couldn't have guessed when you dropped me that I would land on my head. I'm off to find Raisa, and we'll meet up later to discuss plans for the first meeting."

James watched dumbly as his girlfriend kissed him on the cheek and walked back in the other direction. He hopedthat she was being ironic and that her last words were euphemistic.

"Moony, stop sniggering – it really wasn't that funny," he snapped, rounding on the figure of Remus who was following him and diplomatically, if badly, trying to hide his laughter behind his handkerchief.

"Of course not, Prongs."

"No – it was _really _not funny," James amended. "Injuring Lily before we even reach school is a new record for me, Sirius is being worryingly secretive, I have NO idea why that mad old coot Dumbledore chose me as Head Boy, and what I – Peter!"

He stopped his rant abruptly here on almost bumping into the fourth member of the Marauders.

"Erm, Peter mate – where's Sirius?" James asked tentatively.

The small Gryffindor looked up at his friend with wide, sad eyes. "I can't find him anywhere. I think he's lost."

"What do you mean you can't find him?" James replied, his mind now attempting to do a lot of mental calculations in a very small amount of time.

"I mean I couldn't find him," Peter frowned. ...And people thought _he _was slow.

"I sent you an owl last night asking you to stay close to him on the train and..." James continued, trailing off slightly on seeing the confused expression on his friend's face.

Slowly, and with a sense of impending dread and doom James turned and Remus turned to face each other. "You don't think he's stupid enough to be somewhere with Raisa?"

Remus weighed up this statement in his head and on the balances of probability had to say: "Yes."

James groaned and began to feel very ill...

"Oh God, Lily's going to kill me."

* * *

**Bit of a family crisis atm, so this is one edit less than I would have liked... Anywho, please review and hope you enjoy ; )**

* * *

**Next Time...**

"**We found the two of you on the floor on top of each other, so I kind of have the right to suspect that you were fornicating, Sirius.****" James ran hand through his hair and sighed. He was now beginning to understand somewhat the problems that came with being a figure of authority.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

Phew! For about half an hour there I thought my computer had eaten document, but I am sooo glad it that it was just down to my horrible illiteracy when it comes to computers P

Please read and review...

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 2**

"Right," James began briskly as he barged into the Gryffindor Common Room, entourage in tow, knocking over several frightened First Years in the process. "Raisa – go sit by the fireplace, and Sirius go stand by the window. I want you at opposite ends of the room."

Sirius scowled. "It's freaking freezing. How come she gets to sit by the fire?"

"Sirius. Window. Now." James glared at Sirius, just willing him to even attempt to argue any more.

"Congratulations Evans," Sirius turned round to face a frazzled Lily and clapped his hands wryly. "You've actually managed to suck all the fun out of James."

Raisa, to her credit, obeyed the Fun Vacuum's instructions the letter - mostly because she was quite cold and did indeed want to sit near the roaring fire, but also due an inherent embarrassment that she had managed to land herself in this situation.

"Sweetie, are you sure you're okay?" Lily asked her boyfriend hesitantly. Evidently none of this was _her_ fault, but James had still been acting really strangely ever since she had

A James Potter who was rapidly turning very red in the face in the manner of an overheating car engine squeaked in reply.

"OWWW!" Raisa squealed on feeling Lily's hand connect sharply with the back of her head.

"Jesus Lily, what's up with you? I know that you're Head Girl now but there's no need to hit me," Raisa moaned, rubbing her now sore head.

"Look what you did to James," Lily snapped. "You broke my boyfriend, Rai."

"Then you should be hitting Sirius too," Raisa countered smartly, fixing Sirius with a sharp glare as he shivered by the window.

"Oh don't you worry," Lily replied ominously. "Black is next on my list."

On hearing this, Sirius promptly ducked behind one of the window drapes. Lily Evans had a legendary temper, and in James and Raisa he had managed to harm two of her favourite people in the world.

"I haven't done anything wrong," Raisa continued, addressing Lily, James, Remus, Alice and anyone in general who might possibly get her off the hook ... "Sirius stalked me, trapped me in a cabin and then pretended to fainted, -"

Sirius rolled his eyes. Raisa rolled hers back.

"...and after that you stuck your tongue down his throat," prompted Peter matter-of-factly, oblivious to the latent eye rolling. For once he had actually been slap bang in the centre of all the drama, and so was now revelling in the fact that for once he knew exactly what was going on.

"WHAT?" Lily and Alice yelped in surprise.

Raisa pulled a face. "Don't you look so self righteous, Alice – where were you while Black was trying to seduce me?"

Alice immediately turned a most violent shade of red and muttered something about running late and Frank.

Raisa shook her head. "And besides, I certainly did not kiss him. He did attempt to kiss me though."

Sirius scoffed and took the opportunity to jump in:

"Who do you think you are? Bridgette Bardot? It is possible for me to be in the same room as you without wanting to jump your bones."

"What kind of guy pretends to faint to avoid conflict? You looked like a big fat swan."

"I saved you from getting blown to bits by Lucifer and his henchmen."

"I would have been fine. You know from experience that I can defend myself."

"Hey, I have _not_ sucked _anything_ out of James, let alone his fun."

"Dirty."

"This is what happens when the two of you leave me to fend for myself. "

"QUUUIIIIIIIIIET!!"

The warring Gryffindors looked up all of a sudden, stunned to silence by the booming voice of Hogwarts' resident Head Boy who seemed to have now recovered the use of his voice and was using it to very good effect in yelling loudly.

"I want to know WHY I found the two of you fornicating on the carriage floor, and I want to know RIGHT NOW!" James continued.

...Several seconds later he began to regret somewhat the exact volume of his words on realising that the entire Common Room had stopped what they were doing and were now listening intently to the latest slice of drama from the Gryffindor Seventh Year.

...

* * *

The dormitory door slammed shut and three pairs of beady eyes rounded on Sirius Black.

"We found the two of you on the floor on top of each other. Do you w_ant_ her dead or something?" James ran hand through his hair and sighed. He was now beginning to understand somewhat the problems that came with being a figure of authority. Alarmingly he was even beginning to feel a small amount of sympathy for Professor McGonagall.

"I love how this entire thing is automatically all my fault," Sirius glowered. Strictly speaking it was probably somewhere between eighty and ninety percent his fault, but as a supportive friend James should have been prepared to overlook that small fact.

"We're simply concerned about you, Sirius," Remus interjected softly.

"I know that _you_ are, Moony," affirmed Sirius with a pointed look in James' direction. "But you don't need to be. I'm fine."

"Rai won't be though," James piped up, ducking quickly when Sirius threw one of Peter's shoes at him.

There was a fractured silence in which James and Sirius glared threateningly at each other and Peter mourned the loss of his shoe.

"Padfoot, I'm trying to understand here," James continued, massaging his temples, already exhausted by the effort of keeping up with Sirius' logic.

"I didn't kiss her," Sirius stated plainly.

"I promised Lily on the train that the two of you were apart, and then I walk into that compartment and find that you're...you're the opposite of apart."

"I didn't kiss her," Sirius again, this time with a faint tinge of regret in his voice.

"So what happened? You pretended to faint and she was about to give you mouth to mouth?"James inquired, as if it was the most ludicrous thing on the planet.

Sirius inclined his head, pleased that James seemed to have finally grasped the point.

"Oh," James cringed. "So I really shouldn't have yelled what I yelled down there?"

"No."

"Oh."

"If you don't mind me asking Padfoot..." Remus began, with a sense of dread in his voice. "Why, exactly, _did_ you pretend to faint in the first place?"

Sirius winced. Stupid Regalus – the one thing he wanted to keep private and his brother

"You won't like it," Sirius continued, picturing Raisa's face on finding out he had stolen the Black Book. He imagined that James and Remus might not be too thrilled either.

"So there's actually something we will like less than what you already did?" James retorted sarcastically.

Sirius let out a slow, unsteady breath. "I don't really want to tell you."

There. He'd said it.

James looked aghast. "What do you mean you don't want to tell us? We're your best friend, which means that we have a right to know."

"With all due respect, _mate_," spat Sirius. "This is something I would actually like to keep private."

"...and we have to respect that," prompted Remus.

"Can't we just beat it out of him?" questioned James hopefully.

On seeing Remus shake his head in the negative James nodded resignedly. "Okay, well as Head Boy I propose we put in place a banning order."

Peter rubbed his hands gleefully. This sounded like fun.

Sirius, however, snorted derisively.

"Remus, are you in agreement?" James asked rhetorically.

Remus winced, and nodded. "Sorry Sirius, but I think this is for the best."

"Pete?" James asked.

The smallest Marauder nodded avidly.

"You're actively banning me from Raisa?" Sirius questioned, unimpressed. "I'm not a kid."

"Yet your behaviour seems to suggest otherwise," deadpanned James.

"Well thanks a lot, best friend. I feel really, really supported by you," retorted Sirius acidly. "Considering how much we had to listen to you whinging last year about Evans, I think you've really let me down here.

"Sirius-"attempted Remus.

Sirius cut him off by raising his hand. "Goodnight Remus, goodnight Peter – I'm sleeping in the bath tonight."

* * *

The dormitory crackled with the promise of gossip.

"Come on, what did Sirius do to you?

"Did he slip you some kind of potion?

"Sirius did nothing to me bar being an annoyance, and I did NOT kiss him," Raisa protested once more. "However, by tomorrow the entire school will think that we DID." She sank back into her pillows with a sigh. Things were definitely not going to plan at the moment.

Lily looked up from rummaging in her trunk for some nightclothes. "How come James is so adamant that the two of you kissed then?"

Raisa bit her lip. "Do you think Alice is too mad at me for teasing her about Frank?" she inquired, attempting to subtly change the subject.

"Don't change the subject," admonished Lily, shaking her head affectionately.

"He fainted...I had to check that he was okay...and maybe my head might have been in the vicinity of his lips," she replied, sounding feebler by the minute. "Although I now think he was only pretending to faint, because no one looks that graceful falling unless they're faking it."

"And he pretended to faint, why?" asked Alice on her way out of the bathroom, too interested in the story to be angry at Raisa any longer.

Raisa hesitated. The Black Book. She couldn't explain why, but it suddenly felt very disloyal for even thinking of ratting out Sirius.

Maybe a small part of her was quite interested to know why, exactly, he wanted the book...

"I guess he was angling to kiss me?" she said hesitantly, figuring that in the circumstances it might stand as a viable excuse.

Lily nodded sympathetically, in the tone of someone who understood the hell it was to have people eternally wanting to lock lips with her. She then beckoned to Alice and the two of them proceeded to huddle together by Lily's bed, whispering softly.

Raisa was beginning to feel quite left out when the pair disbanded and stood up...

"We can't let you come into contact with him anymore," announced Lily.

"What-? "spluttered Raisa, her expression slowly morphing into a wide grin as though it were the best news she had had all day. "I love you guys! Thank you so much! I agree completely."

* * *

**Please review... ; )  
**

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 3**

"Remus honey, could you please pass me the toast?" Raisa asked benignly.

"Certainly," replied Remus.

Sirius stared at the plate of toast that had formerly been located in front of him, then at Raisa, then at Remus and then back at the toast again. The world had gone bonkers and had taken Raisa hurtling headlong with it.

He turned to Raisa, irked that she had apparently managed to wipe him completely off her radar while she was still all he thought about: "You know, could have just asked me for the toast – I wouldn't have taken it as a declaration of love."

Raisa blushed. "Well, erm, you seemed too busy – I didn't want to disturb you," she mumbled feebly, embarrassed that her blatant attempts to ignore him had not gone unnoticed.

"All I was doing was eating breakfast," Sirius protested, his hands clenching under the table. "...and thinking about how beautiful you look today," he added as an ill-advised afterthought, figuring that since evidently Raisa blamed him for everything, he might as well add the above comment to the list. If anything, it was at least true.

"Okay that's enough," Remus interjected, feeling once again liked he had landed slap bang in the middle of Groundhog Day. Perversely he was actually beginning to miss the days of Hogwarts' new power couple screaming at each other. One thing about Lily and James was that when they were fighting you always knew they were having fun. But this? This looked painful.

"Relax Moony, I was kidding," Sirius sighed, lying through his teeth. "Who would I be to defy the Friend Police?"

"Oh, hahahahaha," Raisa scoffed. She had received a very disturbing letter from home before this wonderful visit from the prophet of doom and subsequently she was beginning to feel very ill at ease.

"You can't ignore me for a whole year Rai," Sirius maintained. "This is painful for both us, but following the advice of a megalomaniac carrot top and ... and James Potter is really not the sensible thing to do."

Raisa glared. "Lily's hair is red, not orange and you are an idiot who enjoys making me suffer."

Sirius' left eye twitched. Oh so this was fun for him, was it? He must have missed that particular memo.

"I think about you all the time," he remarked conversationally. "The way your lips feel against mine, how soft your hair is when I run my fingers through it."

"God, Padfoot," Remus winced, wishing now that he had overslept and missed breakfast.

"Stop it," Raisa moaned, shaking her head hurriedly as though this might actually dislodge the horrible words entering her brain and not just make her feel extremely dizzy.

Here Sirius flinched as a piece of crispy bacon caught him square in the nose and a loud voice began to yell at him.

"MORON!"

He glanced up to the irate face of one 'Carrot Top' Evans who looked ready to explode any second.

"IDIOT!"

"Food fight," observed Remus stoically. "Why didn't I think of that?"

Sirius winced as this time a sausage hit him in the face. "Good morning, I would ask you what the hell you are doing, but you've made that abundantly clear."

Lily pointedly ignored Sirius, instead turning to comfort her friend.

"Oh, sweetheart," cooed Lily, hugging Raisa close to her almost to the point of strangulation. "It's okay, your megalomaniac carrot top friend is here now."

"Oh good, I was hoping that you'd overheard that," Sirius remarked sardonically. "Because – "

"Sirius, let's get to class," Remus cut in loudly and firmly, attempting to manoeuvre his resisting friend out of trouble.

Sirius did not want to go to class but let himself be led out of the Great Hall by Remus anyway. He had first class of the day with James and figured that Hogwarts' Head Boy deserved some annoying too. Plus, he could probably manage to ramp up the anger a little more with James given that he did not find the boy as attractive as Raisa.

Eh, given that everyone seemingly now considered him private enemy number one, the least he could do was act it.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

PLEASE REVIEW! THEY SEEM TO HAVE DRIED UP!

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 4**

As a general rule Raisa quite liked Transfiguration. She was actually very good at it and also tended to get higher marks than Lily did. This was a very rare occurrence and consequently something that Raisa loved to milk at any and every given opportunity. (Lily, of course, would not even consider the thought that her friend might be better than her at something and put Raisa's marks down to a simple clerical error rather than any real endeavour on her friend's part.)

Today, however, Raisa couldn't concentrate one bit and was instead proceeding to bore a series of tiny holes the size of Swiss cheese in the back on Sirius' head.

He deserved it, of course.

Or maybe Raisa had it coming? She had, after all, fallen for the most amazing pigheaded and stupid guy on the face of the earth. Did that make her pigheaded and stupid too? No, it just made her human, and now she was stuck still just being human and despite her better judgement still seriously in love with Sirius Black.

This wasn't fair.

Life wasn't fair...

With a sigh Raisa turned her attention back to class and away from the perfectly in place hair of Sirius Black – idiot extraordinaire.

Professor McGonagall was pacing at the front of the class, attempting to exert some semblance of authority over her group of seventh years who seemed to have forgotten that they still had another year of taking orders from her yet.

She pushed her glasses further up her nose and began doling out working partners for the year of academic travails ahead. Over her many years of teaching Minerva McGonagall had found students choosing their own class partners a most ill-advised practice, and like most ill-advised practices Minerva McGonagall had done her upmost to eradicate with the vehemence with which one might squash a bug.

She cleared her throat and around the room a silence fell: "Partners for this year: Black and Miss Ramsey, and -"

These fateful words took several seconds to permeate in the consciousness of the two most prominent members of the 'KEEP RAISA AND SIRIUS REALLY FAR AWAY FROM EACH OTHER' movement, being as they were far too busy gazing into each other's eyes to bother with trivial things such as lessons.

When, however, the sentence finally registered the love struck couple it took them a mere millisecond to utter a collective: "NOOO!" that was notable for both it's rather massive volume and sheer disregard for their teacher's firmly held belief that she was the only person allowed to yell during class.

Said teacher frowned, in the manner of someone who was certain beyond doubt that the sounds that had just emanated from the mouths of her Head Boy and Girl were simply the result of a really loud cough that by coincidence sounded like the word "NO", or a deep rooted anguish that as every second ticked by their time in Transfiguration for that day was all too quickly coming to an end.

"Potter, Miss Evans? Is there a problem?" McGonagall asked icily, the tone of her voice making it crystal clear that they should think long and hard about answering her question with a yes.

Lily and James looked each other hesitantly, watched in avid fascination by the rest of the class who never ceased to be thrilled and amazed by the ways in which the Evans and Potter show still managed to find material despite the fact that they were no longer sniping at each other.

"Yes," James announced warily, in a chivalrous attempt to shield Lily from the famous wrath of McGonagall. "There is a problem, Professor. There is a big huge problem."

Satisfied with his convincing explanation he sat back in his chair, almost overbalancing and falling to the floor in his haste to seem nonchalant.

McGonagall leant back against her desk, intrigued despite herself. Evans seemed to be bringing out a new self-sacrificing side to Potter which had never been present in any previous years at Hogwarts (when on being caught red handed in the middle of something distinctly unadvised first response had been: "It was Sirius'/Peter's/Remus'/Dumbledore's fault). The Professor had a certain amount of grudging respect for people who allowed the influence of other people to help them grow as people, and as such she decided to hear him out:

"Do explain, Potter..."

James shrank back into his seat, the number of people watching him now becoming painfully apparent. Sirius actually looked as though he may jump up from his seat and kill him.

"It's just that ... "began Lily, gamely attempting to support her boyfriend whilst still remaining on the right side of the Professor's famously volcanic temper. "What James meant to say was that..."

"SIRIUS IS ALLERGIC TO RAISA!" yelled James, years of having to think on his feet in order to avoid being caught by teachers now paying off in spectacular fashion.

Professor McGonagall's eyes widened and someone at the back of the class snorted.

There was a stunned silence as James mentally replayed his words; Lily contemplated how on earth her boyfriend had managed to come up with something so completely moronic and the other members of the class tried to arrange their faces in such a way as to avoid the wrath of both their Head People and their teacher.

"I'm WHAT?" Sirius yelped, first of all thinking he'd misheard but then remembering that coming from James Potter anything and everything was possible. It was also testament to the incredible powers of James Potter's magnetism that most of the room was actually taking him half way seriously.

"He's allergic to her," James repeated, deciding to save face by refusing to backtrack.

"No, I'm not," retorted Sirius, slightly bemused as to why the entire class actually seemed to be buying into the stupidity.

"Mate, its okay," consoled James, hamming desperately. "You don't need to hide it anymore - we're all here for you. It's just probably not a great idea for you to work with her."

"No one is allergic to people," Sirius scoffed. "Someone back me up here please."

The room stayed silent, everyone waiting with bated breath to see what would happen next.

"It's a rare but debilitating condition which means that Sirius and Raisa cannot ever be closer than five feet," continued James, as though reciting a passage from an encyclopaedia. "Isn't that right, Remus?"

Remus cringed, silently thanking James for thrusting the spotlight now onto him and placing him smack in the middle

"Moony!" Sirius snapped warningly.

Professor McGonagall massaged her forehead and wondered how it was possible to be moved to exhaustion after only a mere fifteen minutes of her lesson.

"Potter! Black!" she snapped. "Stop intimidating Lupin, and please do not bring your domestic disputes into my classroom.

And Miss Ramsey...?" McGonagall inquired, now turning the attention to arguably her best student who was at present banging her head repeatedly on her desk in a series of slow, forlorn thumps. "Is there any reason why you and Black should not work together?"

Raisa's head snapped up from her desk, dark brown locks now more than a little dishevelled.

"Maybe...?" she answered tentatively, attempting in her answer to encapsulate something which would please everybody.

Sirius stared at her unreasonably coldly - job definitely not done.

***************************************************************************


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 5**

"Nice one, _mate_," Sirius bellowed at James, elbowing him hard in the stomach on his way out of Transfiguration some hour later.

James fell to his knees with a silent 'oof'. Unfortunately during this process he managed to trip up his Wormtailed friend also, who was far less graceful at falling and so managed to bring down several other people in his wake who were none too happy about it.

"SIRIUS!" Raisa shouted, sidestepping the tableau of mayhem and running full pelt down the corridor to catch up with the guy on whose Christmas card list she was possibly quite low down on.

"SIRIUS! WAIT!"

The dark haired figure stopped several feet in front of Raisa and stood still in order to survey the phenomenon of her out of control running.

Managing to stop herself before she knocked him over, Raisa ground to a panting halt at Sirius' feet.

"Hi," she gasped out, attempting to compose herself.

Sirius' stormy eyes stared unflinchingly back at her. "Should you really be standing so close to me? Someone might see."

Raisa winced. "McGonagall cornered me – I didn't know what else to say," she spluttered out by way of explanation.

"How about: 'no Professor, Sirius is not allergic to me'? That would have worked," Sirius countered sharply.

Oh God – this was bad. Raisa's heart sank. Sirius was really, really angry. How was she ever going to make this up to him and ...hold up minute –

Raisa's thoughts ground to a halt.

"Why the hell am I apologising to you and why, exactly, are you so angry?" she inquired in genuine bemusement but with an undercurrent of anger.

Sirius snorted loudly in an attempt to hide his unease at the direction this conversation was taking.

"No, seriously," Raisa insisted, hands solidly at her hips in full on aggressive posture. "You break my heart and you're now apparently furious that I'm not falling over myself to spend time with you. What's with that?"

In an almost unconscious gesture Sirius grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her forcibly behind a set of nearby drapes.

"Do you honestly think I wanted to break your heart?" he hissed, pointedly ignoring the fact that her small wrist felt

"Do you really think that I woke up one morning and suddenly had an epiphany? Hey, I know what would be really fun – today I'm going to mess with the head of a pretty girl. I know that it's a really bad thing to do and she doesn't deserve it, but I'm going to do it anyway because I'm just that kind of guy. Hi, I'm Sirius Black and I'm horrible person. All of the bad things going on in our world right now, all of that is _nothing_ compared to what _hell_ I'm going to wreak on her and..." Sirius trailed off here, unable to think up anymore synonyms for bad or horrible.

"Are you done?" Raisa enquired tartly. 'Ranting Sirius' was not someone she had been introduced to before ever and her curt tone was masking the fact that by some strange twist of fate she seemed to have reduced Sirius Black to a rambling, emotional wreck. Her father always said she was special.

"Yes," Sirius replied, more firmly than he felt. "I am done."

"Good," Raisa breathed, attempting to inject some order into proceedings.

"Good," affirmed Sirius, simply looking for something to say rather than having any real desire to repeat the word 'good'. Maybe if he kept talking then he could stop staring at Raisa. Given the circumstances and her distinct predilection for violence this might be a sensible course of action.

"Stop yelling at me all the time?" she asked tentatively, growing tired of the silence.

"Fine," sighed Sirius. "I will attempt to control my temper around you in the future."

Inching his face towards hers presumably in order to seal the deal, he was not at all shocked to receive a slap in the face.

"My God, have some self control!" Raisa snapped, ostensibly talking to herself but Sirius picked up her hint too and pulled himself away from her lips, nursing a red handprint on his face.

He kissed her once on the top of the head, realised he was still holding onto her wrist, let go of it hurriedly, backed into a suit of armour almost concussing himself, and slipped out from behind the drapes.

Raisa kicked the poor, unsuspecting suit of armour angrily. Yup, this was definitely not fair. If she ever got her hands around great grandmother Black's neck then it would not be too soon.

When he had rounded the corner, sure that no one else was following him; Sirius doubled back on himself and made his way stealthily in the direction of Dumbledore's office...

* * *

Please review! ; )


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 6**

James Potter had become quite fond of filing. Its intrinsic sense of order appealed to him and he greatly enjoyed all of the pretty colours that were available for him to sort paper into.

Lily was thrilled that her erstwhile boyfriend had taken so well to the administrative side of being Head Boy. She was really, really _thrilled_.

Who wouldn't be thrilled to have their boyfriend spend all evening filing instead of making out with her? It was petty, she knew but it really irked her to have to compete for James' attentions with scraps of parchment. Hogwarts' Head Girl was not one to blow her own trumpet, but she was quite sure that when the pretty genes were handed out she at least beat paper.

"Are you done yet? She called out to him from her position sulking on the Common Room sofa.

James remained buried in his papers, appearing not to even hear Lily which annoyed her even more. Everyone heard Lily Evans, whether they wanted to or not.

"JAMES!" she hissed this time, trying not to disturb the other occupants of the room who had probably had their fill of Lily/James action for the week.

The bespectacled one jerked up with a start, disturbing several sheets of parchment in the process.

"Muffin," he began. "If you could just wait ten minutes then I'll be right with you."

Lily glared. She was not used to having a guy who was meant to worship her talk to her in the manner one might a business client or an insistent fly.

"You said that ten minutes ago," Lily moaned, aware that fly was possibly not so far off the mark.

James frowned. "I know, but I have to finish filing the Prefects," he protested, addressing Lily as though she was a small and very impatient child.

Okay, enough of this.

Lily jumped off the couch with a determined look in her eye and stalked over to where James was working.

"Right, Potter," she snapped. "You are going to tell me what's wrong and you are going to tell me now."

James paled, recognising the angry spark in his girlfriend's eyes. He wasn't all that sure what he had done wrong this time but it must have been something really bad.

On seeing the dreamy expression etched across James' admittedly handsome features Lily knew he wasn't paying attention to her. In a fit of pique she removed James' entire retinue of papers from the desk with a swipe of her hand.

"I am glad – really, really glad – that you like filing so much. It is a great source of happiness to me. But honey, you cannot honestly tell me that you would rather file than have a piece of this." Lily gestured to her body here, aware that she was starting to sound like a very angry hooker.

"My papers!" exclaimed James, looking crestfallen.

Lily sighed. "Sod the bloody papers.

James pouted. "All I wanted was to organised for the meeting on Friday and not let you down."

Lily gazed at him affectionately. "Sweetie, your idea of organisation is scrawling a note on your hand with a quill."

"People can change," James protested unconvincingly.

"Is this about Black?" Lily inquired suddenly, voicing a thought that had been flitting through her brain for the last few days of having to put up with a distant and unavailable boyfriend.

James' face darkened and he remained silent. His stomach was still sore and he was generally not very happy with Sirius right now. Was it so wrong to care about his friend's wellbeing? Well, according to Sirius it was.

"You can talk to me, you know," Lily continued, probing more gently now.

"Sirius can do whatever the hell he wants," insisted James whilst taking a series of covert glances to the floor, trying to work out an opportune moment to pick up his pieces of parchment without looking like overtly avoiding his girlfriend's questions.

"If nothing is wrong then finish up the paperwork for the night and SPEND SOME TIME WITH ME!" yelled Lily sweetly. "Jeez, do I have to take my top off to get you to notice me?" she finished, vestiges of desperation creeping into her voice. Lily wasn't sure that she liked this James – distant and unaffected by her ample charms.

"Maybe you're right," James sighed wearily, getting up slowly from his seat. "Thanks for the advice – I'm gonna hit the sack now."

He moved to kiss Lily on the lips but then as though deflected by some invisible barrier of his own making he landed on her cheek instead.

"See you tomorrow Muffin," he called as he jogged up the stairs to his dorm.

Lily sat down with a thump on the newly vacated chair. She had a hunch this was something to do with Black and all she could say was that when she next caught up with him he was going down.

(Well, he was already going down due to how he was treating Raisa, but after this he was going even further down.)

**********************************************************************************

"...Come again?"

Regalus Black squinted down at the head of his mother floating in the Slytherin Common Room fireplace, wondering not for the first time if she had once again been indulging in a little too much gin.

"Mother," he continued, exasperated. "You do remember that we're meant to hate Sirius?"

The image of Walburga Black's face glared. "Don't tell what I can and cannot remember. Of course I remember that we don't like Sirius. He stole our book, of course we don't like Sirius."

"But...but," stammered Regalus, the many layers of duplicity involved in his mother's behaviour causing him genuine confusion. "Doesn't wanting him to fall in love count as wishing good things on him?"

The image of Walburga grinned evilly at her favourite son. "Ah, but that's the beauty of it Regalus - for Sirius, falling in love will be the worst possible thing that could ever happen to him. And besides – who said he was going to _fall_ in love?" she finished, laughing quietly at her own wit.

Regalus frowned – exchanges with his mother always required him to do far more mental gymnastics than he was ever expected to involve himself in at Hogwarts.

"You want me to meddle with him then?"

"Clever boy," praised Walburga, flushed with pride.

"But..." began Regalus hesitantly, for to criticise anything that his mother said was always an enterprise fraught with difficulty. "But mother, are you sure you want to make him to fall in love with the Mudblood?"

* * *

So apparently today is proving more productive for updates than the whole of the last month has been! :p

Please review, make me happy! : )


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 7**

All things considered, Dumbledore hadn't actually been much help.

Sirius understood that the guy wasn't a miracle worker, but he was still expecting at least SOMETHING – at least SOME sign that there might be just a tiny bit of hope. Instead all he had received were a series of increasingly senseless platitudes and enough cough drops to fill a small wheelbarrow...

****

"_Mr Black," greeted Dumbledore with a smile. "This is a most pleasant surprise."_

"_Sir," nodded Sirius back, slightly disconcerted that for the first time in a long while someone seemed to be genuinely happy to see him. _

"_Cough drop?" offered the Headmaster, proffering a bowl in Sirius' general direction. Sirius didn't have a cough and even if he had done he would have wanted to luxuriate in the physical pain rather than cure it, but he took a cough drop regardless and tried to make it look as though the small sweet was something he had been wishing and hoping for for a very long time. (Albus Dumbledore had a certain amount of the James Potter magnetism about him.)_

"_You know really shouldn't have stolen the book, Sirius," Dumbledore piped up. "How do you expect to continue holding the moral high ground if you resort to petty thievery?"_

_Sirius spluttered, almost choking on his cough drop. "Wha-? How? How did you know?"_

"_I know everything," Dumbledore announced, tapping his nose with a long index finger. _

"_Well then what do I do?" Sirius murmured. "How do I break the prophecy? How do I make it not come true?"_

_Dumbledore stared at Sirius over the top of his spectacles. "That's a lot of questions for one man to answer."_

_Sirius frowned, trying not to get frustrated with someone who was essentially a very nice old man. "Yes, I suppose it is," he breathed through clenched teeth._

_Dumbledore sat silent behind his desk for a few moments as though mulling over some amazingly profound observation and then opened his mouth in order to voice said amazing observation: "Would you like another cough drop?" _

_Despite his best attempts to remain controlled Sirius kicked the desk in anger. "I'd like an answer," he countered sharply. _

"_Has it ever occurred to you that the prophecy is not meant to be broken?" Dumbledore asked, apparently not in the least bit perturbed by the fact that one of his students about to undergo a transformation on par with that of the Incredible Hulk. "If you want it hard enough then it will happen," the wise one continued, satisfied that he had once again managed to impart some great and useful wisdom._

"_Thank you, Professor," Sirius spat, launching himself up from his seat and towards the door, intent on never again asking the advice of anyone ever again unless they_

"_Oh, and one more thing, Mr Black?" Sirius turned round so sharply that he was almost struck by whiplash._

"_I would recommend reading the rest of the book."_

_****_

And to top off having such a useless headmaster, it seemed that his brother had also decided to start following him around. Regulus evidently thought he was being very stealthy and sneaky but the truth was that Sirius' erstwhile younger brother could not be stealthy even wearing rubber soled shoes. Some people were quite content to be landed with a shadow but unless his was small, dark haired and went by the name Raisa then he did not want to know.

Either Regulus was just taking 'things to do when you are bored' to a whole new level or he was up to something.

Actually to put it more clearly, his mother was up to something...


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 8**

"_Why_ are you limping, Raisa?" sighed Lily, unable to help herself being annoyed to the point of distraction by her friend's ponderous gait. It was all very well to take a slow and leisurely walk but it was another thing entirely when the normally quick stroll back from dinner to the Gryffindor Tower instead seemed to drag out into eternity.

"Kicked a suit of armour too hard," the afflicted one muttered hurriedly. Past experience dictated that mentioning to Lily Sirius Black's involvement in said event would only spell trouble so she chose to keep silent on the exact cause of her overzealous brutalizing of harmless sheets of metal.

"Dare we ask why?" chimed in Alice tentatively, a question which could be loosely translated as: "Do we honestly want to know?" Lately, where the antics of her friend were concerned this was becoming a very pertinent question...

"Did Black make you kick it?" Lily jumped in eagerly, abnormally excited at the prospect of being able to blame the bane of her existence for something else.

"Is this coming from the same vein as that Sirius ate all the chocolate cake at dinner or that he used the entire supply of loo roll in the girls' bathroom?" Alice asked amusedly. As someone who was part of an actual normal relationship where the main aim of being together was not to drive the other person crazy, she was in the unique position of being able to survey her friends' madness from a distance and consequently see a small degree of humour in proceedings.

Unfortunately this left her in somewhat of a minority.

Raisa looked up from her ailment, surprised that Lily had mentioned Sirius.

"Actually yes," she nodded, before letting out a loud yelp as Lily's hand connected with the side of her head.

"Oh well that's perfect," Raisa announced, lips pursed in anger. "Let's all go and hit the cripple."

Lily's ears slowly but surely began to turn the same colour as her flame-red hair. "I warned you," she glared. "I bloody warned you – we all did. And yet, you still insist on mooning around him. Sirius Black is a baaad person and hopefully if we hit you enough then this fact will be ingrained into your conscience."

Alice looked slightly appalled at this. "_We_?"

"Come on Alice," Lily encouraged. "You want to be a good friend, I take it?"

"What's with all the pent up rage? Is there trouble in paradise?" Raisa inquired with a scowl, this time dodging the smack round the cranium.

Lily's features darkened. "No. No trouble anywhere. No trouble in any place I know. No trouble."

Yeah, there was sharing and then there was taking the whole being open thing a step too far. No, Lily was definitely not going to let on to her friends that she had somehow managed to screw up her relationship. Admitting was the first step to having to face the problem herself. ...Not that there was a problem, of course.

"No trouble?"Alice affirmed, amused and confused. "No trouble is good," she declared, once again being very thankful for the relative sanity of Frank Longbottom who (bar a slightly odd fetish for apple pie) was actually quite normal.

Raisa snorted. She had known Lily for a long time and as such had become quite adept at detecting when she was telling lies. This was one of those times.

But then again Raisa was also not being entirely truthful either...

********************************************************************************

Regulus Black liked proverbs. They presented the world in a much simpler way than the workings of living and breathing people. People were messy, complicated and downright confusing. Proverbs, however, were simple. A bird in the hand really was two in the bush, once bitten was actually twice shy and hell quite honestly did not have any fury like a woman scorned. But this - this was definitely a time to bring out Killing Two Birds with One Stone:

Ginger dead, ginger can no longer bring down the single greatest wizard of all time. It was simple.

(Or at least his mother had told him it was simple and she was almost always right.)

Disguising it in the book was genius.

Not his idea, but genius all the same...

********************************************************


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

Please read and review! Hope you enjoy :)

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 9**

James leaned against the castle wall and let out a long sigh of contentment – finally he was alone...

He had spent the entire day avoiding Lily, Remus and just generally anyone in his circle of friends who had a brain. Anyone with the latter piece of equipment would be able to tell immediately that something was wrong and then they would ask him what was wrong and then he would blurt the entire thing out and look incredibly stupid indeed.

He couldn't be seen to be looking stupid. Head Boys were not meant to be stupid.

Actively not going anywhere within the vicinity of Lily was the real kicker though – he had only just got used to the concept that he didn't have to avoid the red-head like the plague in order to not be verbally or physically attacked by her, and so having to revert his old style of behaviour was really, really hard.

"Why are you avoiding me?"

James jumped so far in the air that his glasses almost fell off his nose -

There was Lily standing in front of him and looking decidedly unimpressed.

"You know, if you want to break up with me all you have to do is say so," she snapped, her intense glare belying the look of fear in her eyes. "I never liked you that much anyway," she added as an afterthought (and downright lie), as if to cement thoroughly in James' mind that not having him around really wouldn't be the worst thing ever.

James stared up from readjusting his glasses forlornly. "Well that's not a very nice thing to say."

"Neither is avoiding me," countered Lily, a little thrown by the earnest expression on her at the moment boyfriend's face.

James let out a splutter. "Oh come on, would I really-? What makes you think-? How did you know I was avoiding you?"

Lily rolled her eyes. "You could have written it in Day-Glo marker on my forehead and it would have been less obvious."

"Oh," James replied, sliding down the wall to rest in a heap on the ground.

"If you _are_ planning on breaking up with me," Lily began slowly. "-could you let me know now before I get my skirt dirty sitting down next to you?"

James snorted derisively. "I've probably given you reason to break up with me more than anything."

Deciding to risk her skirt for the sake of her boyfriend, Lily sat down next to him and laid her head on his shoulder.

"Come on, spill..."

"It's just..." James began. "It's just that I never really thought we wouldn't all be happy."

"This is about Sirius?" asked Lily sympathetically, whilst inwardly cursing the dark haired and stormy eyed individual who

James nodded sadly. "I want him to be happy, but now I don't really think he will be."

Despite her better judgment Lily felt a tug of her heartstrings. Now this she _did_ understand.

"I get that with Rai too," she admitted. "So I yell, which I can't help doing but also really don't think helps the situation."

James placed his arm around Lily comfortingly and rubbed her shoulder.

"How are you still on civil terms with Raisa then?" he asked, generally quite interested.

She shrugged. "I guess she's just really used to me yelling all the time."

"Rubbish-" began James.

Lily shook her head, biting back a smile. "Sweetie, I love you for trying but even as my boyfriend I don't think you can defend my shouting."

"I could ...talk... to him for you," Lily suggested warily.

"But you don't like Sirius," he protested matter-of-factly and correctly.

Lily cringed. "Don't I...?"

Dammit. She knew that Sirius Black would one day be her downfall.

"You tell me constantly that you don't like him and last week at the Prefect's Meeting you tried to bring in a rule stating that he should be classified as a protected species and caged up in the Forbidden Forest," continued James.

"Oh come on, I thought it was a decent idea..." protested Lily feebly. So maybe the Lock Up Black Act wasn't one of her finer moments - power went to people's head sometimes and made people say stupid things (that they completely meant).

"Look, perhaps I am not all that amazingly fond of Black," Lily started. "...but I am amazingly fond of you," she finished coyly.

James kissed his girlfriend on the forehead. "You're not so bad yourself."

"You also have to talk to him too and tell him what you told me," Lily added, looking up at James.

He winced. "...I do?"

"Maybe don't be talking to him right this second though, because he's crashed out on the Common Room sofa with that bloody book on his head," Lily admitted.

James groaned. "Oh God, Remus mentioned that he might be trying to break the prophecy. He's going to become one of those mad old obsessive men who won't ever let anything lie, isn't he?

"We just have to be better, quieter friends," Lily announced, trying to sound more confident than she actually felt inside.

"We can do that, together," James affirmed. "It's just you and me against the world, Evans!"

"Cut that out."

"Sorry."

***************************************************************************

"Technically you're not really meant to eat chocolate cake in the library," Remus observed, regretting his words quite quickly however when the owner of the chocolate cake propelled a forkful of the stuff right in the direction of his face.

Raisa – being said owner - gave him a particularly venomous look but did put down her cutlery weapon because even if you squinted Remus Lupin did not look like Sirius Black which consequently made him an unsatisfactory target with which to pelt chocolate cake at.

"Sit," she motioned grumpily towards the chair next to her.

Gingerly Remus brushed the stray crumbs away and sat down on the adjacent chair.

"Want to talk?" he asked tentatively. He wasn't all that well versed with the whole girl talk business but he was also not a fan of the Head Boy and Girl's tough love technique. In his opinion tough love only served to alienate and isolate people.

Raisa continued blithely to eat her cake, speaking through gigantic mouthfuls of chocolate. "Go on then, tell me I'm blowing this entire thing out of proportion and I need to get a grip and get on with my life."

Remus winced and reminded himself very firmly that Raisa was actually normally very well-mannered when eating and that this was just a natural reaction to her emotional trauma.

"I don't think that you're blowing any of this out of proportion but what I will say to you Rai is that you should really stop eating that cake," he pleaded.

She pouted. "I'm eating myself into oblivion."

He surveyed the tiny and all in all very slim young woman next to him. "Then I guess you're going to be eating for a while."

"Hey!" Raisa scoffed. "It's really not my fault I have such a good metabolism."

"Besides," she added. "I might as well eat because it's not as though I've got all that much else to look forward to."

Remus sighed. "This isn't the end of the world, Rai."

"Easy for you to say," she retorted.

"No, actually I've decided that you don't get to comment on this," Raisa piped up again, gesturing with her fork and spraying crumbs in every direction. "You've known about the prophecy for a really, really long time and you didn't tell me," she finished accusingly. "Thus, you don't get to have an opinion in the matter."

Remus ran a hand through his hair. "I didn't think it was real. None of us did."

"Lucky me!" Raisa announced theatrically. "I'm the victim of a curse that no one thought was real. I feel better now."

"You're only a victim if you choose to be," Remus said with a wry smile. "I should know that more than most."

Raisa frowned, fork half way to her mouth.

This was the right time. Remus took a deep breath. This was the right time and he would just have to hope she didn't hate him. Raisa needed an ally right now, so why not him?

"What I'm about to tell you is possibly the biggest Marauder secret there is," he began. "So what I say cannot leave the two of us..."


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

Read and review :)

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 10**

"Any reason in particular why you spent all of breakfast staring at my friend's breasts," Alice asked Sirius conversationally, falling into step beside him in the rush out of the Great Hall to get to first lesson of the day.

Sirius stopped in his tracks and turned bright red. "Do you think she noticed?"

"No," Alice snapped angrily, her real feelings now shining through. "I think that Lily was a little too busy talking to her boyfriend JAMES POTTER!!" she finished with a yell.

"Yes?" came a voice from somewhere in the throng.

Alice's eyes widened. "Nothing - see you in class!" she yelled back.

"Oh, okay!"

She grabbed Sirius quickly and moved them out of the crowd, berating the fact as well as an impressively large set of pipes James Potter was also in possession of abnormally good hearing.

"What's going on?" hissed Alice, inwardly impressed by how scary and authoritative she sounded.

"She's really, really pretty," Sirius murmured, glassy-eyed.

Alice frowned. "No, Sirius – you think _Raisa_ is really, really pretty. "

"So is Lily," Sirius replied indignantly, a little put out on Lily's behalf.

Frank Longbottom, who was only a recent addition to the conversation, having been naturally quite suspicious to discover his girlfriend and Hogwarts' resident flirt in an alcove together, let out a yelp of surprise.

"Mate, we're being quiet," Sirius informed Frank. "James can probably still hear us from all the way down in the Potions Lab."

Alice sighed. "Are you _sure_ you're feeling okay? You're not ill or anything?" she asked Sirius tentatively. She had a heart of gold but in this case she really did hope that Sirius was afflicted with something. Then she wouldn't have to hate him, which to be honest was a big waste of energy. Also, it would probably ensure that James and Raisa wouldn't kill him and that the guy actually wasn't systematically trying to knock off her friends.

"I'm fine," Sirius affirmed with a frown. "I've never been better. Just one thing though, you're not going to hit me are you? Last time I was in an alcove with Raisa, she ...hit me." Sirius paused here to gesture to all of the numerous places that Raisa had hit him in the past.

"Also," he added. "Lily might not like fighting in the hallways..."

At this Alice let out a harrumph and proceeded down the corridor at high speed.

"Thanks a lot," Frank glared at Sirius before taking off after his girlfriend at a canter.

"What?" Sirius shrugged nonchalantly, speaking now to thin air. "It's not like James owns her or anything."

With a shrug of his shoulders and tapping his schoolbag to make sure the Black Book was still there, Sirius made his way to Potions.

Lily was in his Potions class.

Lily was good at Potions.

Ah, Lily.

(From a fair distance back Regulus smiled evilly. It seemed as though this was actually working and as always Mother knew best...)

*************************************************


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 11**

Raisa was actually feeling okay for the first time in a long time. She hadn't touched cake of any kind all day and she was beginning to think that life without Sirius in it would be quite a good thing -

In a life without Sirius she would not be the size of a bus and she would have markedly more of a chance of being living in the first place.

Who really wanted to be bound forever to a guy who still thought it was amusing to give out wedgies whenever the mood so took him?

She stepped through the portrait hole and into the Common Room with a wry smile but all of a sudden death by cake didn't seem like such a terrible idea...

************************

Are you sure?" Remus asked Alice for the millionth time as they made their way hurriedly back to the Common Room.

"Oh come on Remus," snapped Alice, not really thrilled with her judgement being so repeatedly called into question in this manner. "He admitted it to my face – of course I'm sure."

"I know he's angry at James, but this is really taking it a step too far," Remus sighed.

He thought he'd calmed Raisa down by confiding in her, but if Alice's account turned out to be true then he would probably not be able to stop her eating all the chocolate cake in the world.

"I had hoped he was ill but apparently he's really not," the female harbinger of doom replied sadly. She hated having to be the one who made Remus' face fall – hell; she hated the fact that so, so many people were going to be hurt by this.

"There must be some other explanation," Remus continued. "Sirius may be many things but he's also very loyal and I really don't think he would do this to James. "

"I guess we'll soon find out..."

************************************************

Raisa's eyes widened. She blinked hurriedly, desperately hoping that what she was seeing was some kind of horrible mirage that would disappear if she could just shake it out of her head, much in the manner of an eight ball.

Okay, image was definitely still there.

Lily. Sirius. Lips practically touching.

There was something very wrong with this image.

"YOU! YOU!" she yelped, anger overtaking her, randomly pointing in many different directions all at once.

Lily, having suddenly regained her senses, slapped Sirius hard and in her haste to extricate herself from the situation.

"_He_ came onto _me_," she insisted hurriedly. "I came to tell him to talk to James and he stuck his tongue down my throat!"

"Can I just interject here?" Sirius began without much hope but feeling like he ought to try and defend himself here.

"Shut up!" the two girls yelled.

"How could you do this to me?" Raisa yelled, not caring about the volume. She could feel the anger building up inside of her, setting into her very bones like cement. She couldn't handle this, she couldn't deal with this.

This was...this was...

She rounded on Sirius now. "Are you...are you sick? Has someone cursed you? Are you OUT OF YOUR MIND?"

"So the only reason someone might kiss me would be because they were mentally deranged? That's nice, thanks," retorted Lily who for the moment seemed to forget that she should actually be supporting the notion that Sirius was not of sound consciousness here.

"Well I don't see any _sane_ people wanting to kiss you," Raisa bit back caustically.

"James is sane," retorted Lily, before blushing the colour of her hair on remembering that learning about _this _particular event might be enough to send him over the edge.

"Huh, funny you should mention YOUR BOYFRIEND!" Raisa yelled. "What does he think about you pimping yourself out to his best friend?"

"Oh that was out of order."

Raisa scoffed. "Out of order like tricking me into to drinking Polyjuice Potion?"

"Don't you dare bring that up again, that was ages ago," Lily snapped, somewhat sheepishly though because let's face it, that particular incident was never going to give her fond memories.

Sirius was beginning to get the distinct sense that his continued presence in the room would not do him any favours. Once the two women had finished fighting it out amongst themselves, logic stated that he would be their next target. Call him crazy but Sirius didn't much fancy being on the receiving end of possibly the two worst tempered people in all of Hogwarts (McGonagall included).

"Stop right there," snapped Raisa, causing Sirius to freeze. "I'm not done with you yet."

His heart sank and when at that moment Remus and Alice clattered into the Common Room, Sirius could have jumped for joy.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 12**

"Okay..." Remus began, pacing the room briskly. "Okay."

"Moony could you _please _stop saying that," Sirius snapped, slightly unnerved by the fact that one of his best friends did not seem all that inclined to stand up for him. Friends were meant to stand up for you, even when you did incredibly stupid things.

"Could _you_ please stop staring at Lily?" Alice piped up sharply. As was her nature she was now feeling incredibly guilty about being the one to bring this slightly icky situation to light and was attempting to assuage said guilt by yelling at the nearest target.

"Actually Alice, on that subject how could you even tell I was staring at her breasts over breakfast?"

Lily jumped with a squeal and self consciously covered her chest. "WHAT? You PIG!"

"Oh come on," Sirius shot her a withering look. "I'm a guy, we all do it – yes, even James."

"Are you sure you're not sick?" Raisa cut in quietly, having listened to the above exchange quietly simmering with rage.

"_Yes_," Sirius nodded, feeling pretty peeved that so many people kept asking him the same thing over and over again.

Raisa nodded grimly. "Okay. Then that means I can do THIS with a perfectly clear conscience," she yelled, reaching out for an errant paperweight from the coffee table and readying herself to launch it at Sirius' head.

"Rai, Rai!" Remus moved quickly towards her, catching her bodily around the waist, large and dangerous object falling to the floor. "It's not worth it – you have to be calm for me here."

Sirius gulped. He was beginning to feel slightly dizzy due to all of the latent anger buzzing around him and he had a nagging feeling in his stomach as though something was not quite right inside his brain. Somehow Remus with his arms around Raisa bothered him and he really wasn't quite sure why because Raisa was not Lily and he loved Lily.

Alice sighed once more. "So who wants to tell James?"

"Tell me what?" replied an earnest voice from the direction of the stairs.

The group in the Common Room spluttered, aghast.

"Did you hear any of the, erm, yelling from down here?" Lily asked with a tentative wince. She was in no way advocating lying as the basis of relationships but at the same time was acutely aware that to the untrained eye Black's stupidity reflected quite outstandingly badly on her.

James frowned. "You guys have something to tell me?"

"NO!" yelled Lily who was becoming increasingly panicked.

"Muffin, I thought we were going to be quieter people from now on," the bespectacled one admonished tenderly. "And Padfoot – why are you glaring at me?"

"Maybe he should know?" Sirius tabled tentatively to those who already did, only to be rewarded by the angry stares of everyone else in the room. "What?"

"You know exactly what," Raisa snapped.

"Oh, so it's still about the whole you two bickering thing then," nodded James knowingly. "Thank God, because I was worried there for a second."

At this point Peter bounded into the room. "Padfoot kissed Lily?"

James' eyes widened to the size of saucers and Peter suddenly shot up to join Sirius on the list of most hated people in the room...

************************************************************

"Is there not an unwritten rule against this?" James frowned. "Is there not _some_ rule _somewhere_ that says that my best friend can't ever try it on with my girlfriend?"

"It just happened – I just woke up one morning and she's all I can think about," Sirius replied apologetically now beginning to feel guilty.

At this, Raisa snorted. "And you're apparently not worried at all that your love will kill her?"

"Exactly," Lily piped up sharply.

"I promise you James that I did not encourage him in any way, shape or form," affirmed Lily earnestly, somewhat worried by the fact that he was not looking her in the eye anymore.

James began to pace up and down the room until he made himself dizzy and stopped.

"You _love_ her?"

"I'm sure that there's a logical explanation for this..." Remus assured James, not really believing it but trying to be consoling anyhow. "He's angry at you and this is just how he's choosing to let it out."

All of a sudden James lunged at a shocked Raisa, his lips fusing themselves to hers.

"Hey – get your stinking paws off my boyfriend!" Lily screamed, choosing to overlook the fact that it was actually her boyfriend with the paws on her friend.

"Potter, what the HELL was that?" Raisa yelped, wiping her lips hurriedly.

"Yes, Potter," Sirius added curtly, a strange and rather inexplicable feeling of jealousy swimming through his veins. "What the HELL was THAT?"

James scoffed. "Oh this is _too good. _So you want _two_ women to kill now?" he questioned curtly. "Why don't you just start a cult?"

"What about you?" Sirius retorted. "Line up women and for no cost at all James Potter will slobber all over you with his dog-breath."

"I'M GONNA POUND YOU," James screamed, leaping full-throttle over one of the couches to reach Sirius, who by instinct ducked out of the way, causing James to over balance and fall headfirst over the sofa leg.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

Author's note: I know I've been pretty terrible in terms of updates lately but I'm getting myself sorted and aiming to finally get this story finished. Major apologies for the massive delay and hope you enjoy... ; )

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 13**

Lily shielded her eyes and stared up into the sky. It had been three days since her boyfriend had last spoken to her and she was worried. She was pretty sure that breaking up with someone generally involved actually telling them, but then again that would actually involve James formulating sentences in her direction which was something that he really didn't seem too willing to do right now.

She blamed Sirius Black. Having said that, Lily had a tendency to blame Sirius Black for an exceptionally wide variety of things ranging from flash floods and famines to why exactly it was that chocolate was bad for you. But this time was different – this time Black just might have singlehandedly destroyed her whole life's happiness.

"James Potter get off that broomstick right now and talk to me," she yelled up at the floating blob in the air, well aware that her current position did not really give her the right to do this but hoping that the scariness of her yelling would offset this.

It did not.

Now Lily had never been one for Quidditch and as a consequence of this had never bothered to progress much past the basics of flying a broomstick. Much to her chagrin Flying remained possibly the only academic subject in existence that she had never been top in.

It couldn't be that hard though, right?

*************************************************

Regulus grinned to himself. From what he could pick up from eavesdropping on a group of rather loud and chatty Gryffindors at dinner his plan was going exactly...well, to plan. Mother would be very happy indeed. Sirius was in love with Lily and all was well and good in the world.

"You're going down Sirius and Lily Evans is coming with you," he snarled. He then made the mistake of attempting to mimic his mother's evil laugh but ended up choking on his own spit instead.

Peter emerged from a nearby corner frowning. He didn't know much about most things but he knew that Regalus Black was an evil, evil boy who always gave him wedgies when he passed him on the corridor. He wasn't sure where Padfoot and Lily were going down to but he knew that if Regulus was saying it then it couldn't be anywhere pleasant. Sirius was his friend and so Peter needed to protect him. Wedgies, after all, were to be avoided at all costs.

He ran off excitedly to tell Remus.

*****************************************************

James' eyes widened as he saw his girlfriend hovering precariously next to him, gripping onto the frame of a worryingly decrepit looking broomstick for dear life.

"What the hell are you doing?" he spluttered. "You can't fly."

"Well if you manage it then it really can't be that difficult," Lily snapped, before wincing on realising that apologies didn't tend to go so well when prefaced with insults.

James glared. "Thank you for flying fifteen feet in the air just to insult me."

"I wouldn't have had to fly if you just had the courtesy to STAY ON THE BLOODY GROUND," yelled Lily. "Oh God, what's wrong with me?" she clapped a hand over her mouth before realising that said hand was playing quite an integral part in keeping her from falling to ground and being squashed like a pancake.

"First rule of Flying for Beginners – both hands on the broomstick at all times," observed James, eyeing the flimsy old broomstick warily.

Lily rolled her eyes. "If you're so worried about my safety then come down and we can talk with both feet on the ground like normal, sane people."

"I might consider it if you stopped yelling at me," James scoffed.

Lily turned as red as her hair. "I wouldn't have to yell if you weren't such an IDIOT."

"There's this thing called silence – they say it's golden," retorted James angrily,

At this point Lily once again forgot the golden rule of flying and promptly toppled off her broomstick and began to plummet to the ground...

**************************************

Sirius woke up to the not altogether pleasant sight of Remus, Peter, Frank and Alice standing over his bed in deep conversation.

He sat blearily and rubbed his eyes. "Is this an orgy?"

"Alice has something that she would like to say to you," Remus prompted, nudging his sheepish friend forward.

The aforementioned glowered, the taste of humble pie being an unpleasant one. "I am truly and deeply sorry for doing you the disservice of presuming from the evidence I had at hand that you were a lying, fickle, cheating, bird-brained idiot. Clearly I was wrong – anyone who can get themselves into a mess like this is very clever and sensible."

"Thank you Alice," Remus conceded that the word sorry albeit sandwiched in between a whole lot of vitriol was probably the best he was going to get from her right now.

"Right," Sirius nodded, now incredibly confused. "Is someone going to tell me what's going on?"

"Peter, would you like to do the honours?" Remus asked courteously.

The little Gryffindor's eyes shone happily at the thought of a long secreted and dreamed about urge of his finally being fulfilled.

"Peter, what are they-?" At this point all conversation on Sirius' part came to an end on being whacked over the head with a baseball bat.

*******************************************************


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

Short chapter but just wanted to get something up...

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 14**

"You have got to be kidding me," Sirius scoffed, his head still throbbing from the worryingly eager blows from Peter's bat.

Remus frowned and wondered when exactly it was he had gained a reputation for tomfoolery.

"Let me get this straight," Sirius began. "You think Regalus spiked the Black Book with love potion in order to make me fall in love with Lily which is all part of an evil plan concocted by my mother, the outcome of which no one will ever know because the book is still spiked with love potion."

Remus nodded with a sigh, wondering how such drama of the highest order seemed to follow his friend about and also why it was constantly up to him to play Sherlock Holmes.

"That's completely stupid," scoffed Sirius. "Everyone knows that a love potion will only ever create infatuation."

"Maybe he thought that infatuation would be enough?" Remus tabled tentatively.

Sirius sighed. "Infatuation would be enough for what? Moony, you're really not being very helpful here."

"My apologies," quipped Remus tersely. Mediating between warring friends was reminding him all too much of the travelling theatre company that used to be Lily and James. Actually, thanks to Sirius' genius they would probably be back to that all over again.

"And just out of interest..." Sirius continued, oblivious. "Did you really have to let Peter smack me round the head with a bat – a bat made of wood I might add."

"If – God forbid – I were you," began Remus. "...I would be worrying a whole lot less about bats and a whole lot more about your best friend whose future wife you tried to steal and the girl you're actually meant to love whose best friend you attempted to kiss," he snapped, wishing right now that he'd actually been the one able to hit Sirius – it would have been very therapeutic.

Sirius sank his face into a pillow with a moan. "Oh God, Raisa and James think I'm in love with Lily?"

Remus cringed. "A little bit, yes."

Sirius raised his head slowly. "How...how is Rai feeling towards me at the minute?"

"You might not be her favourite person right now," Remus conceded warily. "The same could also be said for James and Lily, but then again Lily not liking you isn't exactly new."

"Why didn't you stop me?" Sirius moaned, heart sinking. "You should have stopped me."

"Stop you doing what exactly?" Remus raised his eyebrows. "Don't try and pin this on me, I thought you were really in love with her."

"You all thought I was really in love with Evans?" Sirius scoffed incredulously. "That shrill, megalomaniac whack job? Oh please, I have some standards at least."

"Save some of that for James and Lily," quipped Remus. "They'll lap it right up."

Sirius rolled his eyes, jumped off his bed and stalked towards the dormitory door.

"Where are you going now?"

"I'm going to go kill Regulus," Sirius announced triumphantly.

Remus pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. "Do me a favour and put some trousers on first."


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: ** Don't own a thing apart from Raisa

**Getting Through To You: Chapter 15**

Lily re-entered the land of the living in much the same way she had left it – with a pounding head and a lot of yelling in her ears.

_..."What do you mean we just have to wait for her to wake up? You can't just sit there – do something."_

"_Potter, as much as I am always grateful for the advice of students I really think that Miss Evans would be best served by me handling this."_

"_I understand, but if you could just-"_

"_Mr Potter please desist"_

"_Is this some kind of sadistic punishment for that time I put the whole of Slytherin's Quidditch Team in here?" ..._

"James," Lily croaked groggily. "Why are you arguing with Madame Pomfrey?"

Her boyfriend perked up at the sound of her voice and rushed to her side, prior argument forgotten completely.

"What happened?" continued Lily, a vague and cloudy memory assailing her that her current predicament might have been caused by an inability on her part to do something.

"You attempted to fly a broomstick before realising that you actually, erm couldn't," James admitted sheepishly, well aware of his beloved's aversion to failure.

Lily winced; as was normally the case when confronted with evidence that she was not Superwoman.

James gulped. In the three and a half seconds between Lily falling off her broom and Lily almost falling to the ground, he had come to the conclusion that Lily going anywhere without him was something he did not ever want to contemplate.

"Coming so close to losing you made me realise that I don't ever want to ...lose you again," he trailed off, now realising that the time he had spent arguing with Madame Pomfrey could perhaps have better been used to prepare a speech in order to avoid sounding like an inarticulate moron.

"Here we are Miss Evans," Madame Pomfrey handed over a particularly foul smelling potion and tried to conceal the relish in her eyes. Lily Evans may have been one of the brightest students in the school and consequently the darling of the entire academic staff of Hogwarts, but in Madame Pomfrey's eyes Lily Evans was the girl whose fists of steel had caused the school nurse to become far more intimately acquainted with James Potter than she would otherwise have preferred.

"Marry me!" James blurted out suddenly.

Lily spat the potion out in shock onto the nearest available target which, unfortunately, happened to be Madame Pomfrey.

Madame Pomfrey glared at James.

* * *

Raisa liked chocolate cake. Chocolate cake was her friend. Chocolate cake would not betray her and fall in love with someone else.

She looked up slowly, eyes narrowed in anger. "You."

Sirius sat down warily and a good, safe distance away from Raisa. She had a tendency to hit people when angry and he had had enough bruises from Peter's bat of doom to last him a whole lifetime. She also seemed to be surrounded by a rather large amount of chocolate cake which could potentially be (mis)used as a weapon.

"Well, spit it out then," Raisa snapped. "You're cutting into my chocolate cake eating time."

"Is that such a bad thing?" Sirius asked, casting a dubious eye over the cake and wondering both how she managed to smuggle it into the library and whether there was any metabolism in the world that could survive that kind of onslaught.

Raisa hugged her plate protectively.

"Look, I really don't know what to say," he began – which as a conversation opener was not the strongest.

"How could you do that to me?" Raisa hissed, very mindful that being caught in the library with chocolate cake and shouting would possibly be enough to get her barred for a very long time.

Sirius sighed. "I didn't do anything to you; I was under the influence of a magic spell. You remember magic?" He continued. "That thing we study here?"

Raisa nodded her head slowly....

* * *

Madam Pince glared as she shut the library door with the two troublemaking miscreants firmly on the other side.

"You really didn't need to throw the cake at me," Sirius protested on seeing Raisa affixing him with a particularly mutinous scare. It seemed that, once again, everything was completely his fault. He wiped a stray crumb of chocolate from his hair.

"You really didn't need to patronize me," snapped back Raisa, furious that one of her most prized hiding places was now off limits for the near future. "Come to think of it you really didn't need to fall in love with me, but you did any way," she continued, becoming even more wound up and frantic. "You just can't help yourself can you?"

This statement, unfortunately, proved to be correct as Sirius attempted to hug Raisa before being kicked hard in the shins.

"You never even loved me in the first place, so don't you dare try and start caring now," she pointed at him accusingly.

"Of course I loved you, I still do," Sirius confirmed earnestly, although somewhere in the dark recesses at the back of his mind he vaguely comprehended that he wasn't exactly allowed to do that either.

"I even love you when you hit me, which is saying something," he added as an aside, backing out the way just in case.

"This isn't making me feel any better," Raisa pouted.

"How do you think I feel? My family is out to destroy me and Wormtail clubbed me over the head with a cricket bat!" Sirius exclaimed.

"I would have enjoyed doing that," Raisa chipped in.

"Look," Sirius sighed, trying a different tack. "My mother and nitwit of a brother are plotting something which involves Lily. So please put aside your feelings of hate for me in order to help your friend. Obviously I would prefer it if you didn't but I accept that it is your right to despise me."

"What?" Raisa straightened up. "Lily's in danger?"

* * *

"So just to recap," began Alice. "No one knows where James, Lily, Raisa or Sirius is? Not one single of us thought that it would perhaps be wise to keep an eye on them?"

Frank rubbed his girlfriend's arm comfortingly.

Remus ran a tired hand through his hair. "How the hell am I meant to keep track of all of them every single moment of every single day? I have a life too, you know. I'm not their mother. I have many, many other important things to accomplish in the day other than keeping check of people who really should be able to take care of themselves..." He trailed off on seeing the stunned faces of all present and promptly exited the Common Room.

Alice frowned and made a mental note to make sure Remus was getting enough sleep, because she sure as hell wasn't. Sleep was good. Sleep fixed everything. Sleep was one all too fleeting and momentary instance where Lily, James, Raisa and Sirius did not make up the sum total of her universe. Remus possibly had it even worse than her given that he had generally very good relationships with all four guilty parties whereas she could get away with only liking the female half.

"Well what about Lily? Since she's apparently the one in danger, do we know where she is?" Alice asked, although without much hope. The remaining two members of her audience consisted of her boyfriend, who was terrified of all the missing people bar Raisa and Peter Pettigrew who had enough trouble tying his shoelaces every morning, let alone worrying about anyone else.

This was not good.

* * *

"James!" Sirius yelled, jumping out from behind a suit of armour and causing hid erstwhile friend to jump half out of his skin.

"Prongs!" Sirius continued.

Prongs evidently did not want to converse with Sirius and so proceeded to lead him upon an extremely fast paced obstacle course around several very confused first years.

"I don't have time to talk," James snapped, brushing off Sirius hurriedly. "Lily's in the hospital wing – I've just left to go and get her some things."

Sirius' heart sunk, maybe he was too late. "What happened? Is she okay?"

James looked incredulous at this show of concern.

"I'm not in love with her mate. I got spiked with love potion," Sirius repeated for what seemed like the millionth time.

James snorted. "Likely story, by who - Lily?"

"No, by Regulus," Sirius countered.

"And why would he want to do that?" ...


End file.
